Rangers of the Rift, Season 1

7

7

________________

How do they drop things and jack up the lights and rip the curtains and spit pillow feathers all over the place when they can’t actually touch people? Beats the hell out of me. In training, they tell you Waifs can’t touch a spirit in body—they can’t hurt you. So, once they become Vagari, their number one mission is to empty, possess, and destroy bodies over and over, as if they’re reliving their own destruction. It’s one of those big mother questions Tad likes to play with. I can’t count the number of times he’s gone on about the Higgs’ field and EMF emitters, intermediate vector bosons, and radioactive decay. Maybe the High Order’ll figure it out someday.

Meanwhile, I’ll be here, fending off bad guys, playing by the mystery rules: Sometimes the incorporeal can affect the physical world.

Affect? How about destroy?

The “kid sister” Waif has wrecked the servant’s bedroom. Torn the place apart. From the sound of it, she’s moving into the kitchen. She must sense that her brother has turned. Left her. And she’s not happy about it.

Tad and I hurry together down the low-ceilinged hallway. Well, somewhat together, anyway. I left my body in a hall closet with an armchair leaned up in front, jamming the door closed. Now I’m drifting, relying on Tad’s Sight to watch my back as I move through the Limen. Seen from this side of death, the physical dimension is murky and dark. This is how Waifs and Vagari must see the world they came from. So sad, so ugly. Why would they want to stay here when they could go beyond?

Tad pushes open the kitchen doors as I slip through (smell of sauce, spoiled cream, screaming lobster, blood). I’m slightly taller in the Limen. It means I’m not a master yet. It means that I haven’t found balance and whatnot in my own physical form, the form I was born with.

The Waif is Lillie’s age. No. Even younger. Three or four, just like in her portrait. Permanent tear-stains streak her toddler cheeks, and her black eyes are wheeling. Probably terrified both by our presence in her perfect little ghost world and by the fact that she’s losing herself as quickly as her brother did.

Tad ducks a projectile skillet.

“I’m guessing you see her,” he says with sarcasm, sidestepping a flung rolling pin. “Good arm. Too bad she couldn’t grow up to play softball.”

“Manic little girl with the bullet hole in her forehead? Boomeranging the pizza cutter? Yeah, I see her.”

My disembodied voice is eerily feather-like. It always freaks me out a little.

I approach cautiously. Tad hisses as the girl’s hands pepper with minuscule, dagger-like black hairs. She whimpers and stares at her hands, wide-eyed.

The way to the beyond is secured by a snow-white sheet. Through this, the pure in heart like the thornless rose will pass unhindered. But woe the barbs made by hate, or the guilt of unforgiveness, prejudice, rage. These will not pass but tear.

The old words float through my mind as my astral form approaches hers. She is sweet-faced, with an oozing hole in her skull, like a third eye.

“Who did this to you?” I ask quietly.

—Get away.— Whimpering, trembling, she backs into the wall and brandishes her ladle.

“I won’t hurt you.” I produce the ghost of a quarter from my pocket. Its astral projection flips up into the air where it glints and dances in the light from the smoldering kitchen fire. I catch it, turn away from her, and flip it again. I talk to myself.

“You must be lonely. Nobody to play with.”

Tad’s eyes are on me. Compared with the rest of the physical world, they’re so vivid, lake water blue. So that’s what a person with Sight looks like, this side of the Limen. I’m distracted momentarily, and the coin drops. It makes no noise when it hits the floor, not rolling or spinning, but landing like a dead weight, eagle side down. She giggles.

“Oops,” I chuckle, encouraged by her involuntary mirth. “What’s your name, sweetie?”

She doesn’t answer and instead hides her face in sooty (bloody, I notice) palms. I wonder who murdered her, and if that person ever came to justice. My mind wilts at the thought of having to track down that soul, too, before this little girl can be free. She won’t make it.

“Skittles,” says Tad warningly, as if privy to my thoughts. He taps his watch and glances at the door.

But I don’t have time to move faster. If I scare her off, she’s finished. I bend to pick up the quarter and am surprised by her little hand, suddenly tugging on mine, black eyes round as ripe cherries. I smile.

“Here, want to toss it?”

She tugs my jacket sleeve harder. The hole in her forehead goes all the way through the back of her skull. With her proximity comes the smell of the oily hands that delivered her death. Desire, greed, delight in her fear. Unwashed fingernails. Bile burns my throat, but I muster another calming smile.

“Your turn.” I hand her the coin, nodding encouragement. “Want a go? Go ahead.”

She hesitates.

“Go on,” I urge.

She shakes her head. —I’m not allowed. Have to stay until they come back.—

A clunk. I spin around, and Tad crumbles to the ground from a pie pan to the back of the head.

“Tad!” I scream, but it’s no good. The concierge is now among the walking dead, spirit evicted, consumed by the Vagari. His neck angles to one side awkwardly. I’m guessing the Vagari that now inhabits his body had him take a joy trip over the second-floor railing.

Beside me, breath rancid, the little girl pants. More hairs sprout from her skin and face; she’s got my sleeve in a vise.

The concierge jerks toward me on a broken leg and I ready for a fight with the spirit inside him.

But then the concierge stops, swivels his head like a bed knob on a post, and spots Tad, unconscious.

“No!” I throw myself at the man. I don’t care that the Vagari knows my name, that it could destroy my disembodied spirit faster than I can blink.

But the little girl won’t let go of my shirt; she’s stronger than I am, which doesn’t make sense unless...

Her face is contorted, her black eyes bulging, her skin covered in coarse hair and little pockets of thorns. In the Limen, I can see silvery death energy converging inside her core, sucking the golden life energy from the bacteria in the air directly around her, turning it silver too, consuming it until only darkness surrounds her.

She’s Vagari now. And the other Vagari—

—is bending down beside Tad.

I yank harder, struggling to pull my spirit free. I try to wiggle out of the jacket, but I feel a hand cinch around my wrist stronger than any little girl ought to be.

“Please,” I beg her, “my friend’s in trouble.” But she merely giggles and places her free hand over the quarter, eagle down. I focus all my mental energy on Tad, trying to wake his spirit as the other Vagari hovers closer and closer to his face.

The dollop of golden light inside Tad’s body zigs and zags away from the Vagari’s death-pull.

My chest hurts. I’ve lost them both. I’ve failed them. I’ve failed Tad. All I can do is watch. My Praeses was right. I’m not ready.

I’m no Ranger.

The concierge collapses over Tad. Like oil, the Vagari slides from the body of the dead man and pools around Tad’s prone figure. To possess again and to kill.

There’s another crash somewhere in the foyer. A third Waif, I moan inwardly. This is it. We’re both dead. Tad’s finger twitches, his hand claws the floor.

Icy tears leak from my eyes. I’ve never wept while drifting before.

Drifting.

Wake up! I scream at myself, but it’s no good. I can’t quiet my heartbeat enough to hit the eject button, not while Tad’s—Oh, God, Tad is getting to his feet, and his eyes are like pits of deep space. His spirit, a watery drop-shadow, clings to the edges of his body.

The kitchen door bursts open.

A woman stands there—a wide streak of gray in her hair and a silver arrow nocked in her crossbow. Her haggard eyes are ringed by multiple pouches of fatigue. Her expression is gaunt, hopeless. She looks right past the little girl Vagari holding me down and aims the bolt at Tad.

“Don’t!” I yell.

She pauses. Tad grabs a kitchen knife from the floor.

“You don’t look well, Ranger.”

“Speak for yourself,” I say, sniffing back tears.

“Leave your drift,” she commands. “I’ll finish these.”

I nod, but Tad turns, opens his mouth, and says, “Emily.” I freeze, my breath siphoned from my lungs by the sound of my name uttered by Tad’s voice, at the will of a malignant spirit.

“Jesus, girl,” snarls the woman. “I thought I was the only one that stupid.” She yanks a vial from a leather cord around her neck, pops it open, and douses Tad in holy water.

He shudders and crumples, and the silvery spirit leaps out of him. The Vagari beside me sticks out her tongue in a hiss. The bullet hole in her forehead is crawling with what look like translucent worms.

—Emily...—

—Emily...—

—Emily...—

Their voices are icicles sliding in and out of my gut. The little girl lets me go, and I crawl to where Tad lies. Focus, I beg my consciousness. Leave the drift. But that requires a meditative soul, and I’m anything but placid right now. I want revenge. I turn. The other Ranger has sunk down to a sitting position, and now her spirit disengages from her body.

“Don’t wanna leave, do you?” the Ranger’s astral voice says, annoyed with me. “Then you take the girl.”

She looks toward the older Vagari, who lifts his head and gives a wolf-like howl.

“Andrew,” I hear her whisper. It sounds like a caress, laced with apology and despair.

—Jewel.— He licks his lips. Then their spirits are gone: he flashes through the doorway, and the Ranger pursues.

I stand, face the girl, and wince at what she’s become. She scrambles for me, first on all fours, then upright, and I catch hold of her throat as she leaps at me. She gurgles my name, and it’s all I can do to keep my grip. She claws, teeth gnashing, but I don’t let go. I drag her like an unyielding dog, away from Tad, back down the hallway, wrestling her through wall corners when she won’t turn. My brain is pulsing from the effort and from the constant image of Tad’s possessed mouth speaking my name.

Just as we reach the closet, she manages to pull free and sink her teeth in my arm. I scream and fall back through the armchair, through the door, and into my body. Breathe. Breathe. It takes another two or three seconds to make the transition out of drift. Then—

—the Vagari realizes she’s found a human to possess.

I open my eyes. The physical dimension is hard and real, in full, dusty, broom-closet color. Without Sight, I can’t see her fully—only a warped globe of dark energy hurtling toward me. I steel myself for the impact of her spirit entering my flesh, dig my hand into my laptop bag for the shampoo bottle, and gasp as the Vagari begins to take control. She starts with the impulsive part of my brain. I suddenly have this insane, jubilant need to climb a flight of stairs and tumble down them.

I let her have her way. Obediently I stand and push at the door, all the while twisting the cap off the shampoo bottle. I scream and kick at the door when it won’t open.

“It’s blocked by the armchair,” I tell the little girl, who immediately forces me to utter a flood of gibberish curses. In between kicks, I tilt back the shampoo bottle and drink the nasty stuff down.

Hoping this homebrew batch of holy water is strong enough.

Hoping.

For a moment, there’s a pain so bright it’s like a small explosion in my gut. Then I sink back onto the floor.

Alone in the dark.

Exhaustion trembles in my biceps and in the ragged breaths I take, inhaling the comfort of Tad’s scent still clinging to his jacket. Breathe. He’ll be okay. Breathe. Slowly. More slowly.